When I first moved to LatAm, the cashiers always asked how many "cuotas" I wanted to pay. I was initially confused and realized it meant I could take a (interest free?) loan to pay for my purchases in installments.

I never understood how this was common in high interest countries in LatAm, but unheard of in the USA.

Does anyone know? Like actually know, not speculating.

It's common because people want goods but don't have the money to buy it

Oh you want a $140 Instant Pot? I think you mean a 1.5x minimum wage Instant Pot

So the only way to buy an Instant Pot is to do installments

It's interest-free for the customer because the interest was already bundled in the good's price.

It's risk-free for the retailers, as the full purchase amount is taken from the customer's credit card limit, but they will only receive the money in installments, unless they opt to receivables financing.

There are retailers that offer discounts if you purchase in one lump sum. Now recently some banks started giving discounts if you pay the installments in advance.

This is common in high interest countries as there is this whole financing industry that revolves around customer credit, and as the interest rates are high enough, there is lots of money to be made.

It really will depend on the country

If you're using a credit card, you specify at POS how you want to split the purchase (Number of installments, or cuotas in spanish), if it's free of interest will depend on your deal with the bank (And if the seller has different plans)

It's common for even the worse cards to charge interest at least from the third month onwards, but most banks have special deals with seller of costlier products (I'm pretty sure I could make a car payment with 0 interest (to my card))

Can't comment further, but the US has always seemed particularly backwards regarding their banking: - Needing a third party to allow instant transfers - Mobile POS being weird / Needing to take a card away from a table to charge it - How common checks are - Overdraft fees

People can't save so they need to pay with credit to buy things they want, even it that means paying 2x the original price.